


Paint It Black: A Marauders Story

by SiriuslyQueer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Sirius Black, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Magic, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Mostly Canon Compliant, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Peter is a real character, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Rise of Voldemort, The Marauder's Map, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriuslyQueer/pseuds/SiriuslyQueer
Summary: It's the boys' sixth year at Hogwarts, and already it's not going as Remus or Sirius planned. Sirius finally had enough over the summer and ran away from home, moving in with James and his parents. He's crashed there plenty of times before when things at home got to be too much, but this time feels like it's for good. What he can't escape so easily is the nagging guilt over leaving Regulus behind and what that could mean now that dark forces are infiltrating the pureblood families.Remus is determined prove that he's as capable as any normal wizard as he lays the groundwork for an ambitious future. But at the start of term unexpected news from Professor McGonagall sends him reeling, spinning the life he thought he was working toward to shreds.Amid the rise of Voldemort and the start of the first Wizarding War, the Marauders will have to choose just how far they're willing to go for what's right, for love, and for each other.(Featuring all the angst and pining and unrequited mess of two of the most adorable nerds to ever attend Hogwarts.)
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Original Male Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 19
Kudos: 78





	1. Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> The 25 chapters is just an estimation; it may be slightly more or less depending on how things shake out with editing, but this piece will be novella-to-novel length. I'm updating as often as I can, but it will not be even or scheduled because life and original projects. If that means you ignore this fic until it's finished I understand. 
> 
> I'm having so much fun writing this. I hope you have fun reading! 
> 
> I'm a sucker for positive reinforcement, so please leave love, questions, and suggestions in the comments! :)

“Then I slammed the door behind me and dragged my trunk out into the street.” Sirius waves a hand in the air above his head for emphasis. “It was all very dramatic. Hey Prefect, what’s the password?”

Remus stops so hard outside the Fat Lady’s portrait that one of his first years runs into him from behind. He’s leading a whole gaggle of them just behind Sirius, James, and Peter, straining so hard to hear that he hasn’t paid them much attention since making sure he didn’t lose any on the shifting staircase.

“Ashwinder,” he says, then, as an afterthought to the wide-eyed eleven-year-olds peering up at him like goldfish, “You’ll need the password to get into the dormitory, so memorize it and pay attention to when it changes. A prefect can help you if you lose track."

Sirius snickers and ducks into the open portrait hole, James and Peter close behind.

Remus rolls his eyes. Ever since he made prefect last year Sirius can’t get over the fact that Dumbledore actually trusts one of them to wield power over other students and roam the corridors unsupervised. Remus has top marks and an almost-perfect disciplinary record. (The “almost” being James and Sirius’s fault too.) Why shouldn’t he be a prefect?

And yes, maybe he has occasionally snuck out to Hogsmeade for unsanctioned apothecary purchases. (He always makes them leave money on the counter even though Sirius and James tear the mickey out of him for it.) And perhaps he’s used those purchases to brew one or two (or five) illicit potions in their dormitory bathroom. But Dumbledore doesn’t know about any of that, because unlike some people he’s capable of subtlety. 

A bewitched radio blares _Hepsaba and the Golden Goblins_ , guitars thrumming through the garble of conversation in the common room as Remus herds the last of his first years through the portrait hole and peels off toward the fireplace.

Prefect duties accounted for, he loosens his maroon tie and undoes his robes so that they fall open over his uniform shirt and slacks. The Gryffindor common room is like melting into a squashy armchair: all soft edges and warm wood and about a million degrees when it’s packed full of too many people.

“Gents, you would not have believed Walburga’s face.” Sirius flops onto the armrest of a chair by the fire. “Nearly seventeen years’ hard time and I’m a free man.” Without looking he lays back across the lap of the chair’s current occupant, a blond third year boy who shoves Sirius’s shoulders and tells him to sod off before struggling from beneath his outstretched torso. 

“Where did you go?” Peter plops onto the floor across from him, James swooping behind Peter into the seat vacated by the blond boy’s friend.

“My place of course.” James knocks Peter’s shoulder with his knee.

Sirius shrugs in agreement, like he’s already bored with the conversation, but he’s clenching his teeth. Remus can tell from the way his jaw juts forward a little.

“Merlin, when did they get so small?” James cranes to look at two first year boys wandering past them, their eyes wide with what looks like awe as they glance back. Remus smacks him in the shoulder on his way to sit down.

“They’re not animals in a zoo. I know for a fact your mother taught you better.”

“But they’re positively peaky. There’s no way we were that tiny our first year.”

Remus stretches his legs out on the floor with a groan and leans a shoulder against Sirius’s chair, popping the top button of his shirt.

“Come on, we were so,” he says. “Some of us still are.” He looks pointedly at Peter, doing his best to squash the grin tugging at his lips.

Peter stretches out to kick him hard in the shin but then he’s grinning too. “At least I can still fit under the cloak without bending in half, Beanstalk.”

“Yeah, some of us have already achieved perfection,” Sirius nods at Peter. “Any further vertical development would simply be unfair. How would the rest of you compete?”

“Uh huh. So Mr. Perfect, when do we find out how you managed to get all the way from London to Godric’s Hollow without breaking about ten different magical laws?” Remus keeps his voice light and teasing when he looks up at Sirius but something sharp jabs his sternum, something hot like annoyance that makes absolutely no sense.

Sirius blinks at him, widening his eyes to ask why the hell he’s bringing this up again. Which is a fair question. One Remus doesn’t have an answer for. But while they’re not asking questions he wants to add _Why the hell did you wait through the train ride and the whole bloody feast to mention that you moved in—not stayed a while, not visited until things cooled off at home, but_ moved in _with the Potters?_

And more to the point, _Why didn’t you write in the over-a-month you were there to tell me or Peter any of this?_

Sirius draws himself up a little in his chair, jutting his chin to level a defiant glare at Remus. It’s a challenge, one that makes Remus want to tackle him and shove a pillow into his face.

Sirius rakes his hair away from his eyes with his fingers. Stalling. (Or for dramatic effect, the fucker.)

“If you must know I was dragging my trunk down Grimmauld and out of nowhere this giant purple bus nearly ran me over. ‘The Knight Bus,’ the guy called it. ‘Assistance for the stranded witch or wizard.’” Sirius sits up a little to make quotes with his fingers. “He asked me where I wanted to go, and—” He shrugs. “Mind you I almost puked on the way. Driver was a young guy, just a few years out of Hogwarts—and apparently insane—but he got me there in no time.”

“Mum and dad were thrilled.” James may incite trouble all over Hogwarts but he's like a mother hen when there's conflict between the four of them. “They’ve always wanted another son, I think.”

Sirius smirks. “Can you blame them? They’ve been exclusive with your dense arse for years. ‘Bout time they branched out, see what they’ve been missing.” He arcs his neck back over his armrest and almost into the next chair, apparently trying to see how much of his hair he can drape over Marlene’s shoulder before she notices.

Sirius has the longest, most ostentatious neck in the entire world. Every time he swallows his throat muscles ripple and his Adam’s apple dips and bobs—it’s a whole production, just like everything else about him.

Remus looks away from Sirius’s ridiculous neck, down to where he’s picking at his own left thumbnail, chewing his lip over how much it’ll torment James and how Sirius might put something sticky in his bed later, but he can’t stop himself. “So that’s it then? You’re not going back this time?” 

Sirius jerks his head up and meets Remus’s gaze for maybe a second before his face smooths out again, but Remus catches it—a gray, sorrowful, pleading _something_ that makes his chest ache. 

“Of course he’s not going back.” James leans forward. “Mum and dad already invited him to our house on breaks.”

“As well they should. I’m delightful.”

“And I mean, Merlin, Mum only just got him patch—”

“So Wormy,” Sirius barks. “Snog any birds on the family holiday?”

James tugs at his hair, apparently fascinated by the fire crackling in the grate. Sirius grinds his jaw under what looks like the faintest shadow of unshaved stubble. (Since when does he even _get_ stubble? Remus is a bloody _werewolf_ and he barely has to shave once a week.)

Peter’s eyes dart between James and Sirius as he realizes he should say something but has no idea what, because he stammers nonsense syllables for a few seconds before regaling them with the details of his family’s trip to the Isle of Wight. (They toured Carisbrooke Castle; he kissed the cheek of one Bertha Higglesby.)

Remus has only met the Blacks once, but he’s heard plenty from James. (And seen plenty: the darkness that passes over Sirius’s face when he gets a letter from home; the way Sirius comes back every September looking as grey and peaky as he does.) He’ll be good goddamned before he believes that Orion and Walburga Black simply allowed Sirius to walk out of their house.

Sirius sits with his arms crossed, scowling at Peter, though Remus suspects he’s not listening. Remus draws his knees up and props his elbows on them, staring at the floor between his feet. Why can’t he ever just leave well enough alone? Sirius doesn’t want to talk about it. Obviously.

But the words he’s not saying ring like thunderclaps in Remus’s ears and he can't help but run into the lightning strike, searching for how much of Sirius is left intact.

Peter, bless him, is yammering on about camping with his aunt and uncle, his eyes shifting back and forth in horror that he’s somehow still talking.

“Quidditch!” The word bursts out of Remus, and then they’re all three staring at _him_. Even Sirius has cracked, somehow goggle-eyed and squinting at the same time like he’s half-worried Remus has been hexed.

“When are you holding tryouts?” Remus manages, his cheeks hot as looks over at James. 

“Next Wednesday,” James says, eyeing Remus as skeptically as Sirius is. “I’ve got some killer new defensive plays to drill ahead of our first match against Hufflepuff. A variation on something I saw at the Harpeys/Cannons match with Dad over break...”

He’s talking more to Sirius and Peter now. (Because Remus only pays enough attention to quidditch to keep from getting completely lost in their conversations and has possibly never brought it up on his own before now.) Sirius nods along, doing that infuriating thing where he smooths his hair back with his fingers, but he keeps itching at his shirt.

Sirius doesn’t fidget. Ever. (That’ll happen when you’re shouted at the first decade of your life for wiggling too much at the table.) Remus, on the other hand, can't stop picking at his fingernails or the loose thread on his cuff or he might spontaneously combust, and watching Sirius is making him itch. 

James trails off in the middle of explaining some Seeker distraction tactic, looking at something behind Remus.

Over his shoulder he sees Lily Evans and a seventh year girl—Alice somebody?—over by the portrait hole next to a bunch of nervous-looking first years, the-girl-possibly-named-Alice laughing at something Lily’s just said. Remus turns back around, rolling his eyes because _of course_.

James Potter is a walking cliché he’s so enamored. It’s getting embarrassing.

“So Sirius told me he saw you and Corman snogging in the broom shed at the end of last term,” Remus says, casual as the weather.

James doesn’t react, not even when Peter chokes on a laugh behind his hand.

“But I told him there’s no way, you’d never run ‘round on him like that.”

Sirius smacks him on the arm, but Remus can feel him shaking the chair with quiet laughter. His shoulders unclench a little. 

When James’s only response is rumpling a hand through his hair, Remus leans up across Peter and flicks him hard in the forehead.

“Oy!” James jolts back, his hand flying up to catch his glasses where they’ve knocked askew.

“You’re welcome.” Remus deadpans. 

Sirius barks a laugh beside him as a hand taps Remus’s shoulder.

When he looks around Lily’s standing above him, a piece of folded parchment in her hand.

“Hey Lils,” he says, still laughing a little. “Good holiday?”

She smiles down at him, her thick red hair bouncing as she nods. He can feel James’s eyes on him and resists the urge to roll his again.

“Yeah. Stayed home mostly, caught up with some neighborhood friends. But it was nice.” She holds the parchment out to him. “McGonagall asked me to give you this. I guess you left the feast before she could catch you.”

Because he’d been in such a hurry to hear Sirius’s story, he realizes, instead of staying to gather more first years. Which is what he should have been doing. His neck heats as he takes the note.

“Thanks. She say what it’s about?”

“No, sorry.”

Almost-definitely-Alice calls her name from a table in the corner where she’s sitting with Lily’s friend Mary, and Lily waves that she’s on her way. 

“Hey, I checked the schedule,” she says as she’s turning away. “We’re on corridor patrols together most of this term.”

“Excellent.” Getting to hang out with Lily is a major factor that makes the whole prefect thing worthwhile, besides that it looks good on his records for applications. He’s never been good at making fast friends, people he gets along with from their first conversation, but he and Lily meshed in their first potions class and have been partners ever since. (She’s the reason he managed high enough OWL marks to even get into NEWT potions this year.)

Which is why when James leans to cuff him on the back of the head after she walks away, he reaches across and does it right back.

“What the hell, Moony? You can’t leave me an opening?”

“What the hell yourself,” Remus says, rubbing the back of his head. “You were sitting right there. You could have said something.”

“There wasn’t a good moment.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you,” Sirius cuts in, grinning.

“Besides,” Remus says as James opens his mouth to argue. “Lily’s my friend outside of your current undying devotion. She came over to talk to _me_.”

“What’d McGonagall want, anyway?” Peter asks over James’s grumbling, nodding at the note in Remus’s hands.

Remus shrugs, hoping he seems like he doesn’t care, but his stomach flips as he unfolds the note. He hates that he assumes the worst in absolutely every situation, like worry is his body’s default setting. His mom’s forever on him to think positive, that he can’t control everything that happens to him so why torture himself. He’s stopped trying to explain that it’s not that easy.

Maybe so much horrible shit has already happened to him that his brain just assumes it will keep happening, or maybe he would have been like this no matter what. He’s not sure. 

He holds the parchment closer to decipher Professor McGonagall’s neat but small slanted handwriting.

“She wants me to come to her office tomorrow before classes,” he says, rereading the two lines again like there should be more. “I guess there’s a problem with my schedule.”

“Probably because you’re taking too many courses.” Sirius’s hair falls forward as he leans over Remus’s shoulder to read the note himself. “You’re going to make the rest of us look bad if you don’t tone it down.” Remus's spine stiffens at the tickle against his skin.

James snorts, then straightens up, clearing his throat. Remus slips the note into his pocket, his other hand rubbing away the sensitive spot on his neck.

“Now gentlemen, onto more pressing business.” James furrows his brow in mock seriousness. “It is my pleasure to announce to you that I have successfully pilfered and snuck in…” He reaches into the inside pocket of his robes, extracting something glass and rectangular that makes Remus shake his head, because he doesn’t need a good look to know that it’s—

“A bit of Ogden’s Best Firewhiskey, courtesy of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter’s liquor cabinet.” A few other sixth and seventh years nearby turn toward them in interest as he holds up the bottle of sloshing amber liquid. (Which was no doubt his intent with the grand announcement, though he doesn’t acknowledge them yet.)

“And so,” he says, waving his wand with his other hand. At first nothing happens, but then four small glasses zoom out of the boy’s dormitory stairwell and land on the arm of his chair, into which he decants two fingers each of whiskey. “I propose a toast.”

Wedging the bottle into the cushions beside him, he hands them the glasses. Remus takes his last, frowning at James. They’ve been back a grand total of four hours. He’s still wearing his prefect’s badge, for Christ’s sake. 

“To our sixth year at Hogwarts, gents,” James says with a wicked grin on his face, leaning toward them with his glass outstretched. “May there be more mischief and mayhem than ever before.”

Peter and Sirius raise their glasses. And Remus wants to. He does. But he _is_ a prefect. And there’s still first years milling around. And he has to meet McGonagall first thing tomorrow morning. Not that he’ll be hungover from one whiskey, but it’s not exactly professional is it? And what if—

Sirius turns toward him, their faces close from the way he’s sprawled out of his chair. He arches an eyebrow, flashing that insufferable smirk again, and a smile tugs at the corners of Remus’s mouth. Rolling his eyes mightily, he raises his glass to meet theirs with a clink.

Remus throws back the whiskey, coughing a little but savoring the burn all the way down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the first chapter of my first-ever long fanfic. Thanks for reading! Next chapter things'll really heat up!


	2. Baba O'Reilly

Remus is early. So early he’s in danger of beating Professor McGonagall to her office, which even for a prefect is mildly ridiculous.

Waiting outside feels too eager. He could pop over to the library and read for a while, although by the time he gets there he’ll have to turn around and come back. He’s just around the corner from her office when he decides on neither and peels off down the opposite corridor.

The castle is different when it’s empty. More intimate, even as the cavernous ceilings make him feel small. 

He normally only does this when he can’t sleep. He has to be cautious—a prefect out of bed at all hours of the morning, if not technically against the rules, is still suspicious as hell—but at least he doesn’t have to pilfer James’s cloak anymore. He discovered most of the passages on their in-progress map this way, stopping to inspect whatever statues or odd-looking tapestries he came across as he let his mind drift.

Professor McGonagall attended Hogwarts—her name’s on one of the quidditch awards in the Trophy Room. (She was a chaser, and a damn good one according to James, who quite uncharacteristically bolted to the library in search of old records the moment he found out.) He's tried to picture it before. Was she awkward like him, all elbows and clumsiness, or even then did she walk with that intense, calculating poise, carry it right onto the pitch? She would have been unstoppable.

His mother went here. So did James’s and Peter’s and Sirius’s parents, and almost every other witch or wizard he’s ever known. It’s strange to think of them here, maybe standing where he is right now.

In all that time, were there ever any others like him? He’s sure Professor Dumbledore would have told him if there’d been anyone in recent memory, if only to make him feel less of a burden. But what about before? Was there ever another werewolf who managed to slip through, to cope with their condition enough to make something of themselves, their footprints ground into the dust between the flagstones at his feet? 

His shoes click and echo down the corridor, making the sleeping portraits grumble. He rubs a hand hard over his face. At least they got some sleep last night.

He spent the better part of an hour staring up into the dark, running through a list of Shrinking Charms in his head, willing himself back to sleep. The first moon back is just a week away—the earliest into term he’s ever transformed—and he needs all the rest he can get not to fall behind. And he will _not_ fall behind this soon. Not with prospective apprenticeship evaluations a year off. Now more than ever he needs to prove that his issues wouldn’t hold him back, that he could be as big an asset to a lab as a normal wizard.

But every time he closed his eyes his thoughts spiraled out to what potion Slughorn might have for them (and ten scenarios of how he’d muck it up) and why didn’t Sirius write him about running away and the always-present anguish of will this be the year that someone discovers what he is and exposes him?

It was still dark enough to need wandlight when he gave up and snatched a book off his nightstand. _The Season of the Witch_. (Not a wizard book, funnily enough, but a Muggle novel he found at the library sale back home over the summer. He’d overheard the librarian stocking the cart huffing about ‘indecency’ and ‘the rubbish Americans come up with’ and figured it was worth a look.) The journal-entry style of the writing was easy enough to get into, but his mind kept wandering back to what problem McGonagall could have found with his schedule. His OWL marks were decent. (And some downright impressive, if he did say so himself. Which he wouldn’t.). But all more than adequate to move on to NEWT level.

Sirius was joking, but maybe he was right. It was probably just a time conflict. Nothing to worry about. But even repeating it to himself he couldn’t shake the nagging flutter in the pit of his stomach. 

After he’d finally kicked off the covers in frustration and dressed in the pre-dawn grey, he’d dawdled packing and repacking his bag until Sirius grumbled from behind his drapes (something about Merlin and murdering Remus in his sleep). Even James, an insufferably cheerful early riser, had moaned for him to hit the Common Room if he had so much to be getting on with before the arsecrack of dawn.

When he circles back around to Professor McGonagall’s office the door is open. Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, he ducks his head inside and knocks on the door frame.

“Professor?”

She’s seated behind her rich wood desk, finishing what appears to be a long letter. Maybe he wouldn’t have beaten her here after all.

“Good morning Mr. Lupin,” she says without looking up from the parchment. “Please have a seat.”

Remus drops his bag beside the chair in front of her desk, straightening his tie out of habit. Everything about McGonagall’s office speaks of her: few decorations outside of a handful of gold-framed pictures, and the Quidditch Cup on a shelf behind her. James says she keeps her office bare and intimidating on purpose, but after so many meetings here he finds the dark browns of the wood and leather-bound books strangely comforting. Tidy and proper, but not oppressively so.

Professor McGonagall replaces her quill in its holder and, giving it a last glance up and down, puts the letter away in a side drawer.

“I hope not to keep you through breakfast,” she says, opening another drawer. After thumbing through it for a moment she pulls out a worn maroon folder with his name on it. “We’ll try to be brief.”

“Of course, Professor. Your message said there was a problem with my schedule?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Her voices hints at a weariness that makes Remus stiffen in his seat.

“I’m registered for the courses we discussed last term, and with my OWL marks, I thought—”

She picks up her wand and flicks it once at the door, which swings shut with a soft click. “Unfortunately some things have changed since last term, Mr. Lupin.”

His fingernails itch instinctively to the calloused skin around his thumbnail.

“I’m sure you’ve followed the news over the summer,” Professor McGonagall says. “Pertaining to a certain dark wizard?”

He nods. Five more disappearances had been reported in the Prophet over break. Only two were confirmed as Voldemort and his forces but Remus had wondered. What any of that has to do with him or his classes he has no idea, but he knows better than to interrupt.

“You are less likely aware than in addition to gathering toward him misguided witches and wizards, he has begun to recruit followers from among all manner of magical creatures.”

“What sorts of creatures would fall in line behind a wizard?” Remus sits up straighter, unable to stifle his curiosity even as his stomach flips with nerves. “Most of them think we hold too much power as it is.”

“Precisely.” McGonagall peers over her glasses at him, folding her hands in front of her on the desk. “All manner of dark creatures believe that we lord our power over them, and that’s what he has promised them in return for their loyalty. Power. Magic they’ve never had access to.”

Understanding drips cold down his neck. “What sorts of creatures?” he asks again.

“Ogres. Giants. Some goblins, though thankfully not many.”

“Werewolves?” He holds her gaze. Even he’s a little surprised at the edge in his voice.

“Any that feel our society has denied them.” McGonagall looks at him hard, then removes her glasses and sets them on her desk.

“We’ve always known there would be difficulties in your life after Hogwarts, barriers to your career pursuits caused by prejudices and the need to accommodate your lunar cycling. However, we—that is, Professor Dumbledore and I—have never doubted that you would find ways to be successful. But now that Voldemort has begun recruiting werewolves”—her tone is academic as ever, like there’s not a werewolf sitting bloody across from her—“Now that so many are flocking to him and his promise of power, tensions are rising.”

Hatred, she means. Hatred for people like him. Monsters.

He thinks he catches a flicker of something on her face—exhaustion? regret?—but then she clears her throat and it’s gone.

“When we discussed your schedule at the end of term, you expressed the intention to pursue apprenticeship under a researching wizard focusing on experimental charms. At the time it seemed reasonable that with Professor Dumbledore’s connections we might find a place for you to study that would accommodate your needs. However, given recent developments, this will no longer be possible.”

He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the air goes out of him like he’s been knocked backwards off a broomstick. (He’s always been a rubbish flyer.)

Professor McGonagall keeps talking, something about an alternative path for him outside academia, but the words sound like buzzing in his ears. He’s grown so comfortable at Hogwarts, so used to the warm insulation of acceptance—at least from his professors and best friends—that he’s let himself forget how different he really is from the rest of the wizarding world. How repulsive and unwanted.

For five years he’s fooled himself into believing that if he threw himself into his studies, made prefect and came out near the top of his year, he could become one of them. That if he could make himself good enough, what he _is_ wouldn’t matter. But of course it matters. It always has, and it always fucking will.

“There’s a resistance forming,” Professor McGonagall says now, and he blinks, aware for the first time that he’s hearing information he shouldn’t. “A force outside of Ministry control is preparing to take on Voldemort and his forces directly. I’ve spoken to Professor Dumbledore, and he agrees that despite your age, with your commitment and natural talent you could be an asset to this movement once you leave Hogwarts. Your—unique—situation could prove incredibly useful. The work would be dangerous, but your basic needs—room and board, meals, a small stipend if possible—would be accounted for. It would be something, at least, when you leave here.” She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and deep lines flicker across her forehead before smoothing out again.

“I’m sorry Remus.”

He can tell she means it, but part of him still hates her for being the person to lay this weight across his chest. He swallows hard, then studies the smooth, whorled grain of her desk. His voice is thick as he hears himself agreeing to switch from Ancient Runes to Astronomy, Arithmancy to NEWT Herbology. Courses more applicable to field work. More practical for his new bleak future.

He will need additional training outside of his coursework, to prepare.

He nods.

She will oversee these practices personally in weekly meetings throughout the year.

He nods.

Their discussions are strictly confidential. She looks at him hard, like she knows damn well who he’ll slip up to. (She’s not wrong.)

But he nods, and he nods, and he shoulders his bag, and then he’s jogging through the corridors, and all he can hear is the blood in his ears.

His stomach gurgles. He should head to the Great Hall to snatch the last bit of breakfast, but his feet carry him up flight after flight of stairs. He slows his strides and bites his cheek to keep his face neutral as he passes a handful of other students already on the way to their first classes, the weight in his chest clenching so hard his breaths come hard and sharp through his nose.

He doesn’t know how he’s still standing because his head is swimming and he’s spiraling and he’s not getting any air but then he’s at the top of Gryffindor Tower. With the door slammed behind him he falls face first onto his bed and claws at his pillow and screams and screams and screams.

***

“You don’t think Meadowes is a better Chaser?” James asks, taking such a large bite of bacon he may as well have shoved the whole strip in his mouth.

Peter reaches across him for another scoopful of oatmeal. “She does have a hell of an arm. But it’s easier to train up a decent Chaser than a Beater.”

“Exactly.” Sirius points his fork at Peter. “You’ll have ten people trying for Chaser, easy. There’s bound to be a couple who can fill her spot and Corman’s with a little work, but how many do you think will go out for Beater? One, maybe two?”

“And there’s a certain amount of instinct to being a good Beater,” Peter agrees. “You either have it or you don’t.”

Sirius stabs another forkful of eggs. “Dorcas filled in for Nahome those two matches last year, and she almost always plays Beater in our pickup games. She’s a natural. I’m telling you, move her to Nahome’s Beater spot and tryout two new Chasers.”

James groans, leaning an elbow on the table and thrusting a hand through his already rumpled hair.

“But that leaves me and two brand-new Chasers on offense,” he says as he picks up his bacon and rips another bite off with his teeth. Maybe that’s a reason Lily keeps shooting him down: his ungodly table manners.

“Well no one said it was going to be a sunny walk through Piccadilly Circus did they, Captain?”

James has one of those ridiculous jock smiles that reaches clear back to his molars. Earnest and easy, like there’s nowhere in the world he’d rather be than exactly where he is. It’d be insufferable, honestly, if Sirius didn’t know it was true. (The glasses help too. A front-and-center reminder that he’s not bloody perfect.)

It’s pretty rare for a sixth year to be named Quidditch Captain. And with Gryffindor losing two of their best players to graduation after winning the Cup last year, James is going a little manic planning the new season’s strategy. They couldn’t get through a meal the last week of break without him and Mr. Potter launching into renewed debate over the best practice drills for developing new talent in each position—a debate he seems keen on resurrecting now that he has a fresh audience in Peter. 

Sirius cuts himself another bite of sausage, glancing up at the entrance to the Great Hall again. If Remus were here, he’d have already given up on them and propped a book open against the jug of pumpkin juice.

He’d ducked out of their room early for his meeting with McGonagall—early enough that Sirius had snarled at him from his nest of warm blankets as the door snapped shut behind him.

He should be done by now. Excessively polite as he is to McGonagall and the rest of the professors, Remus wouldn’t miss breakfast.

He doesn’t outright stuff his face like James so it’s harder to spot, but Remus is an absolutely ravenous eater. Seconds and thirds at every meal, and sometimes he swipes sandwiches to sneak to the library after classes. (It’s because he’s a werewolf—it must raise his metabolism or something, because no matter how much he eats he’s still lanky as a bowtruckle.) (He’s not lanky so much as wiry, like Mick Jagger.) (And _tall_. Merlin, last night with his legs stretched out across the floor—he must have grown another two or three inches over the summer.)(But still.)

Sirius tries to keep his eyes from wandering as he looks back to his plate—he managed the whole feast last night without giving in once—but his gaze flits to the Slytherin table before he can stop it. Reg is in his usual spot near the end with his friends, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear as he scoops more eggs onto his fork. His hair’s still not as long as Sirius’s but it hangs past his chin, a cooler, darker black like their mother’s but with the same straight, flowing texture that pools strands down into his face every five seconds.

His best friend Roland laughs beside him and Reg smirks. Sirius breathes out hard through his nose.

He probably doesn’t have the right to be angry—he hasn’t written Reg either—but that doesn’t shrink the heat swelling in his chest. Anything Sirius sent would’ve been intercepted by Kreacher and handed over to their mother anyway. Reg could have found a way to sneak something out. And okay, he didn’t know that Sirius had gone to the Potters, but the Black owls are professionally trained. He could have figured something out since August.

Reg glances up from his plate and their eyes meet, his fork stalled halfway to his mouth. Sirius’s spine stiffens and he jerks his gaze the other end of the Slytherin table, hoping he seems like he’s looking for someone else and not staring at his brother like a lost puppy. Which is lame and frankly, hilarious. (He has exactly zero Slytherin friends; their cousins Bella and Cissy definitely don’t qualify.) But it’s still preferable to showing Reg even a hint of weakness he could report back to their mother.

He’s about to feign disappointment at not spotting his imaginary Slytherin and turn back to James and Peter when he notices Snivellus Snape toward the middle of the table, scooting in beside one Lucius Malfoy. Sirius cranes his neck a little to get a better look, brows drawing down.

It wouldn’t be that unusual—they’re both enormous enough gits, they probably have tons in common—except the Malfoys are as blood-obsessed as the Blacks. Lucius is a seventh year, but Walburga has tea with Adrianna Malfoy at least once a month, and they’re always invited (or in Sirius’s case, forced) to each other’s parties. He’s sat through enough excruciating cocktail hours in stuffy salons with Lucius and his numpty cronies Greg Goyle and Thomas Crabbe to know exactly how they feel about half blood wizards like Snape.

Had Lucius gotten the same letters he and Reg did all summer? Badly formatted and spouting all kinds of rubbish—"Purity is Power,” the old families needing to “reclaim their rightful place” over muggles and muggleborns. Rallying support for “this noblest cause,” demanding that “young wizards take up the fight” by sending their letter of support back with the delivering owls. After the first ones Sirius had snatched up both his own and Reg’s every time and tossed them unopened into the grate. When his father caught him at it he’d earned a mind-glazing lecture on their duty to traditional values and three days confined to his room with no meals.

“Oy, Padfoot.”

Sirius whips around.

James and Peter are already swinging their legs over the bench across from him. James looks from him to the Slytherin table and back, eyebrows raised.

Sirius stands and gathers up his bag before he can say anything, tugging a hand up through his hair. That James saw the state he was in when he arrived at the Potters’ is bad enough, not to mention that he almost let it slip last night to Remus and Peter. If he needs anything from his best friend, it’s silence and a good case of amnesia. Not pity.

He tries to look out the doors again as they flow up the aisles on a tide of black robes, but there’s too many people milling around to tell if Remus is there. Snatching a leftover sausage roll off a tray as he passes, he wraps it in a napkin and shoves it into his pocket.

“What’ve we got first?” James says, pushing his glasses up his nose and perusing his schedule as they turn out into the main corridor. “Bleh, morning potions with Slytherin, just feed me to an acromantula now.”

“Same,” Sirius grumbles, leaning to look down the corridor over James’s shoulder.

“I’ve got Divination,” Peter says, his shoulders falling. He didn’t place high enough on his OWLs for Slughorn’s NEWT Potions, but Sirius doesn’t see how missing two more years of potions is something to sulk about. The only reason he’s taking it is because James and Remus both need it for their tracks (aspiring auror and future genius, respectively) and he somehow scraped an Exceeds Expectations last term.

“Don’t worry mate,” he says, throwing an arm across Peter’s shoulders and peering down at the schedule card in his hands. “We’ve all got Transfiguration after. Besides, you might be able to pick up palm reading or something. Girls love that stuff at parties.”

Peter shrugs, about to peel away from them up the stairs as they head down to the dungeons when Remus comes jogging up behind them. Sirius lets his arm fall.

“Where’ve you been?” James asks. 

Sirius knocks Peter on the shoulder and passes him the napkin-wrapped pasty, nodding his head at Remus.

“Oh, I uh—thanks Pete,” he says, taking the sausage roll. “I forgot something, had to run back upstairs after McGonagall. Potions, then?” And with a nod to Peter he sets off down the stairs, taking a huge bite as he rounds the first corner, out of sight. 

He doesn’t slow down to wait for them, and by the time Sirius and James file into the Potions room he’s sliding onto the last stool at a table of Gryffindors beside Lily. James watches him, frowning, and it’s work for Sirius not to roll his eyes. (Although it is a bit selfish, really. Lily might be the best in their year at potions, for Gryffindor anyway. Remus is no slouch either, his tendency toward explosions when things do go wrong notwithstanding. The least they could do is pair off with other people and let some off their brilliance rub off on everyone else’s grades for a change.)

Most of the workspaces around the scorched tabletops are taken, so he and James end up dropping their bags at the first table, their backs exposed to the front of the room. The air is thick with a wondrous, heady smell, and Sirius slips as he settles onto his stool, which of course makes James snort beside him. He shouldn’t be hungry since they’ve just left breakfast, but he swears he’s caught the scent of cumin and chilis. It’s the exact smell of his favorite curry cart in Muggle London, and it’s making his mouth water. He’s turning in his seat to examine the row of cauldrons misting and bubbling behind him when Slughorn ambles to the front of the class.

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve prepared a few potions ahead of class for your perusal. Purely for interest today, of course, but most are the types of potions I would expect any of my NEWT students to be capable of by the time of your examinations seventh year. Now, can anyone tell me about this first sample?”

The clear liquid lays flat and still as glass in its cauldron. Sirius turns away from it as a few hands shoot up around the room.

“Veritaserum,” he hears Snape answer a few tables over, and his fist clenches around his quill. Part of him wants Slughorn to ask if anyone knows what it _feels_ like to be under the influence of veritaserum just so he can get one up on Snape in his favorite class.

It’s like being tied down, he’d say, looking right at Snivellus. Like someone’s got their hands around your neck and they’re squeezing, and the words bubble like foam in your throat choking you until you let them out. (Walburga is a mediocre alchemist, but she has endless connections. They have their own private stores.)

The glopping grey mass next to it turns out to be Polyjuice potion. (Dead useful under the right circumstances, he imagines, but the thought of drinking it makes him gag.) After that is a shimmering pale pink potion spilling steam into the room. (And he suspects the one making his mind gloss over.) He noticed the curry spice first but now he keeps catching a whiff of the forest after the rain and something sweet, like baker’s chocolate, but earthier too. Earl grey tea?

“It’s amortentia,” Lily says. “A love potion.” She and Remus are facing opposite him and James at their table. Even from here he can see her cheeks flush beneath her freckles as giggles titter around the room.

Ever the academic, she clears her throat. “It smells different to each person, depending on what attracts them most.”

“Excellent, Miss Evans. Ten points to Gryffindor. Now this last potion really is curious…”

Sirius tucks his hair behind his ears and looks down at the table, away from the babbling gold potion on the end. His head swims and his stomach’s churning from the veritaserum. (Supposedly it doesn’t have a smell or a taste, but he swears he can taste it on his tongue now anyway.)

He shakes his head, trying to clear it. There’s a musky scent under the spicy sweetness—something animal, almost, but not in an unpleasant way—and it’s making him dizzy sitting so close. 

He doesn’t realize Slughorn’s told them to start working until he hears pages shuffling and cauldrons clanging around him. Glancing at James’s open book, he flips to the correct page in his own and starts pulling out ingredients. Draught of Living Death. Yes, please. Their first class and he already wants to flop back into bed and sleep for hours.

Soon there’s bluish grey steam wafting from his cauldron, the heat sticking to his skin. His hair keeps falling in his face as he works so he twists it into a knot on the back of his head and sticks his wand through it. (McGonagall snatches it out and deducts points from him anytime she sees him do it—according to her he’s going to blow his head off—but what else is he supposed to do? He doesn’t have any of those weird elastic things he sees the girls with, and he hasn’t had a chance to ask Marlene for any yet.)

He’s chasing a rock-hard-and-impossible-to-slice sopophorous bean around the cutting board with his knife when the smell hits him again full-force and he has to lean back from the table, head tilted toward the ceiling. He should have asked Slughorn if he could switch workstations with someone before they started.

No one else looks like they’re as bothered by it as he is. They’re all bent over their cauldrons (Snivellus is so close he’s almost inside his), stirring and sweating and cursing under their breath. Lily runs a finger along the lines of her book, totally zeroed in, of course. Their potions are supposed to be a pale lilac color by now, but his is dark, murky plum. He’d quit now, honestly, just to get out of this room—he never had a chance at winning the Felix Felicius anyway—but he can’t get an incomplete on their first assignment of the year. He’ll never hear the end of it from Remus, for one thing.

Sirius glances up at him, wondering what color his potion is (pale perfect purple, probably), and jumps when their eyes meet. He swallows. Then, as an afterthought, smirks. (Not because anything’s funny; it’s pure impulse at this point when he has no clue what else to do and doesn’t want to look it.) Remus ducks back to his cauldron, his face and neck flushed from the steam. 

“All right, everyone,” Slughorn announces behind him. “Excellent work. Time to see how you’ve faired.”

He check’s Sirius’s cauldron first. “A reasonable attempt, Mr. Black, although I think you’ve perhaps stirred in the opposite direction than your instructions indicated. A bit more concentration to the task at hand may help in the future.”

“Of course, Professor.” If that’s the only problem Slughorn found with his disaster of a potion, he’s not going to argue. He clears up his station while Slughorn makes his rounds through the classroom.

“ _Evanesco!_ ” James waves his wand over his cauldron and his pale periwinkle potion vanishes. “So this is NEWT potions? Bugger me.”

Sirius stuffs his potions book into his bag. He looks up to reply but James is staring a few tables over, where Slughorn is leaning over Lily and Remus’s cauldrons with his hands in his vest pockets and a pleased look on his face.

“So.” Sirius clears his throat. “Think you’d actually stand a chance with a little Amortentia as a boost?”

“Oh sod off.” James shoves Sirius’s shoulder, rifling a hand through his hair.

Sirius grins. “These are important academic questions, Prongs.” James shoves him again, hard enough that he almost topples off his seat. “Come now, we must be thorough. Concentrate on the task at hand.” Sirius makes a low, subtle wanking motion with his fist, which is all it takes for James to drag him backwards off his stool.

“Absolute—git,” James says, arms around his shoulders, but Sirius can hear the smile in his voice. James tries to bend his arm behind his back; Sirius ducks out from under his hold just as Slughorn’s voice claps across the room.

“Gentlemen.” He gives them a pointed look before turning to the rest of the class. (At which point James gives Sirius one last shove from behind.) “You’ve all performed exceedingly well for your first class, but I’m pleased to announce that the winner of today’s challenge, and little Felix here”— he holds up a tiny glass vial with maybe a half ounce of swirling gold liquid inside—“Is Mister Severus Snape, for an exceptionally brewed Draught of Living Death, perhaps the best I’ve seen in all my years at Hogwarts.”

A weak applause ripples through the class with audible groans from a few Gryffindors. It’s not exactly a surprise—Snape is the best in their year at potions, full stop—but Sirius hoped that Lily might snag it from under him. He swears Snivellus shoots a look at him and James as Slughorn hands him the vial, and he wishes he could knock the smirk off his greasy face.

“Please take a look at Mr. Snape’s potion on your way out,” Slughorn says over the din of clanging cauldrons and scraping stools as Sirius shoulders his bag. “Paying particular attention to the hue and the characteristic ripple pattern.” As if he’d take one step closer to that slimy git or do anything besides leave this hazy, dizzying room as quickly as possible.

Sirius is already out the door by the time he notices that James has doubled back for Lily and Remus. The dank air in the dungeon corridor tastes cool compared to the stuffy classroom, but his head still swims with the musky sweet scent. He resettles his bag on his shoulder, turning to see what’s taking them so long when someone clips him on their way out the door, nearly knocking him over.  
“Watch yourself, Black,” Snape sneers, just loud enough for Sirius to hear him in the crowded corridor. He grabs Sirius’s arm like he’s trying to steady him, but his nails dig hard through Sirius’s sleeve. “Wouldn’t want trouble on the first day back.” 

Sirius clenches his jaw so hard his teeth hurt as he shakes off Severus’s hold. “Seems like trouble’s finding you well enough without my help. You and Lucius looked awfully cozy at breakfast this morning.”

Snape falters, rattled for a split second before his sneer resettles around his mouth. “What would you know about it with the filthy company you keep? Mudbloods and spoiled children.” He glances over Sirius’s shoulder, where James and the others should be coming out to meet him.

“Besides, you’ve got enough trouble at home, I hear.”

Sirius stiffens and Snape must see it because there’s a gleam in his eyes that hollows out Sirius’s stomach.

 _Reg_.

The thought sucks the wind out of him, but how else would Snape know?

“Congratulations Sev.”

Sirius doesn’t take his eyes off Snape. Lily’s voice behind him sounds cautious. Or hopeful.

Snape looks past Sirius and his eyes go soft, but then he ducks his head and stalks away down the corridor without a word.

“Greasy son-of-a—” James mumbles as they round onto the stairs. Lily smacks him on the shoulder.

“What?” James throws his hands up in a plea of innocence. “You were nice to him and he didn’t even speak to you. Why can’t I call him a son—”

Lily smacks him again but doesn’t answer before hurrying away up the stairs.

Sirius doesn’t want to dislike Lily. She’s whip-smart, for one thing. (He’s never been all that fussed about his grades, but he can’t stomach dullards. The conversations alone are physically painful.) And she’s close with Remus, which counts in her favor. It’s just hard to watch your best mate get shot down for two years straight, though Sirius has to admit James has deserved at least a little of the irritation directed at him. The thing he can’t forgive her for is the way she defends a pureblood-manic, dark-arts-obsessed arsehole like Snape.

Remus falls into step beside him when they reach the top of the stairs. “What was that about?” he says, thumbing the strap of his bag.

“What?”

“You and Severus.”

“Nothing,” Sirius says too quickly. Clearing his throat, he levels his tone. “Just Snivellus being a git as always.” Out of the corner of his eye he can see Remus watching him.

He breathes deep through his nose as he walks, trying to clear his head. Make his face impassive again. Unlike Remus he’s quite good at it. He’s had a decade or so of practice at home, after all.

Except it’s not home. Not anymore.

Every time he forgets it’s like a hole punched through his lungs.

The main corridor’s a bustle of people, but the musky scent must be stuck in his nostrils. He swears it follows him all the way to Transfiguration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always had the headcanon that music (specifically rock and roll) would have been a big part of Remus and Sirius's lives growing up in the heyday of London rock, so from here on a lot of the chapter titles will be songs I think they would have listened to in the mid-1970s that accentuate the mood at that point in the story. Plus it's a great excuse to go through my record collection and do some classic rock re-listens. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading. :)


	3. No One is Innocent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting. This chapter was giving me some trouble so I worked on the next couple instead and just got back around to this one. Enjoy!

Remus rolls his wrist and flexes his fingers as they turn into the Great Hall. He didn’t expect the professors to go easy on them the first week, but six pages of notes seems a bit much for a first lesson.

“D’you think it’s possible that Binns died again and came back even more boring?” Sirius says as they make their way to their usual spot near the middle of the Gryffindor table.

James claps him on the shoulder. “Yes mate. Binns found a way to bend the fabric of magic itself for the sole purpose of making you miserable.”

“Seems logical.” Peter swings his bag down with a thunk.

“It’s really a shame,” Remus says, sliding onto the bench beside him. “The Dwarf Uprisings were fascinating, as historical conflicts go. Betrayals, double agents—it’d be like a spy novel if he told it right. There’s a great book on it in the—”

Sirius groans, plunking his head down on his arms. “Merlin and Morgana Moony, two hours of this rubbish isn’t enough?”

James pats him on the back and points from him to Remus. “You see what you’ve done?”

Remus grabs a ham sandwich off the tray closest to them. “Reading something that’s not required won’t kill you, you know. You might accidentally learn something.”

Sirius sits up. “Why would I do that when I have you?” He flashes Remus a shit-eating grin and snatches up two spoons to drum out what Remus recognizes as the bass line to Foghat’s Slow Ride.

James takes a bite of roast beef. “Speaking of our librarian-in-residence—”

“Ah, extra research isn’t so bad as long as it benefits you,” Remus says, pointing his half sandwich at him.

“Precisely, glad you’re caught up. So, any new—” James glances around them— “ _Cartographical_ developments over the summer?”

Remus shrugs, widening his eyes in the picture of innocence. Sirius kicks him in the shin under the table. 

“Prongs, you should really control your dog,” he says. “Bad boy Snuffles.”

Sirius kicks him again. 

“Christ, all right—be nice to me. Or maybe I’ll take my hard-earned knowledge elsewhere.”

“Good news, then?” James leans forward on his elbows.

Remus perches on his seat, his voice hushed. “I think I found a way around the unplottability enchantments, but we should make copies of the four sections we have before we test it in case the castle’s safeguards wipe them once they’re connected.”

James and Sirius cock their heads a little, James bringing a hand to his chin. It’s eerie when you first notice how similar they are; it’d be easy to believe they’re brothers even though James is half Indian and Sirius is English-old-money white.

“I think we can alter the same charm that animates the portraits,” he explains. “Trick the castle enchantments into thinking the map isn’t a map at all.”

“What to do you mean, ‘not a map?’” Peter asks. “It’s kind of obvious once you look at it that’s what it is.”

Remus shakes his head. “The castle’s unplottable, but paintings of Hogwarts exist. We could trick the magical safeguards into thinking ours is just a really, _really_ impressionistic one. And it would allow for real movement in the map elements instead of the blippy, jerky stuff we’ve had so far.” He shrugs, like this bit of exhaustive charms theory hadn’t occupied about half his summer.

When he looks across the table Sirius is staring at him with this bewildered look on his face. Remus bites his lip, sure he’s got carried away again (he does that), but Sirius just smiles. Not his sarcastic smirk. It's that gorgeous wicked elation he gets when he’s just gotten away with something. “Merlin Moons, that’s bloody brilliant.”

Remus ducks his head, but he’s grinning too. “There’ll still be some hiccups to work out,” he cautions. “And there’s tracking large numbers of people to sort through, but I think we’ve got some options.”

“I did some digging on that bit,” Peter says, turning toward Remus on their bench. “We may not have to add each person individually like we did when we put ourselves on the test section. There’s this census spell my dad’s department uses at the Ministry. I was thinking we could—”

And Peter’s rummaging through his bag for his notes and cursing because he’s left them upstairs in his trunk, and Sirius and James are hanging on each other’s shoulders and talking over each other as they spout off more modifications and Remus leaps back in with them, scribbling it all down as he wolfs a second sandwich. It’s the same tingling rush as working on their Animagus transformations: gliding out over the unknown without a tether, teasing apart highly advanced magic and breaking about twenty school rules, all in plain sight. Better than the best drug. He could go on like this forever, suspended in their own world of questions and pressing the limits just a little further. He could—

“Merlin Lily, would you just let it go?” 

Remus looks around, quill still scratching down James’s latest idea on password protection.

Emmeline stacks her dishes without looking at Lily, letting her silverware clack against her plate louder than necessary. She and Lily are friends—or at least they study together. He knows the look on Lily’s face though—lips pursed, brows stern, a fierce spark in green eyes like a tidal wave. 

“Don’t you think we deserve to know what precautions are being taken?” Lily’s not as loud as Emmeline but Remus can still hear her from a few seats away.

“Precautions?” Emmeline scoffs. “My mum’s on the Board of Governors. She’d know if they were taking any ‘precautions’—"

“And they’re not, which is exactly the point! There should be added security measures. From the Ministry, the Governors, Professor Dumbledore—we don’t even know if anyone’s tracking the Death Eaters’ movements long-term. What if they came to Hogwarts? What if—”

“Oh please.” Emmeline says. “‘Death Eaters,’ honestly—it’s just a bunch of bigoted reject boys playing commando. You know their leader calls himself the ‘Dark Lord?’ It’s like they’re straight out of a comic book. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Dumbledore or the castle’s enchantments. How can you possibly take them seriously?”

“They may have started out disorganized, but according to the Prophet their numbers are growing. And what about the disappearances this summer?”

“The Prophet?” Emmeline crosses her arms, her face smug. “They’re all exaggeration and alarmist drivel these days. Half of what they report couldn’t possibly be true. My parents think the Minister needs to take a firmer hold of their whole operation.”

Lily slaps a hand down and leans across the table. For a second Remus thinks she might lunge at her. Half the Gryffindor table’s watching them now. “Have the Ministry controlling the free press? Are you insane? That’s—"

“And I’ll admit they’ve done some horrible things,” Emmeline sniffs, like she thinks she’s being diplomatic. “But the Death Eaters are a fringe group. The Ministry will rout their leaders, and they’ll fizzle out. If you’d grown up in a wizard household, you’d know that’s how it always goes. I guess there _are_ some downsides to being Muggleborn.”

“Hey that’s enough!” James slams his fists on the table, making the silverware and Remus and everyone around them jump. He’s craning forward, half out of his seat.

“Mind you own business Potter,” Emmeline snaps at him.

“If I have to listen to you spouting all that rubbish it is my business,” he fires back. “Not a far cry from sounding like a Death Eater yourself, huh? ‘Downsides to being Muggleborn,’ what absolute bollocks. I grew up in a pureblood family too, in case you forgot, and this time _does_ feel different. This Voldemort and his sick followers, they’re not messing around.”

James hadn’t mentioned anything about the news in his letters over the summer—but then why would he? Their conversations don’t exactly turn on dissecting current events.

He could be saying all this just to get on Lily’s good side, but Remus doesn’t think so. James can fake charm and charisma no problem but he’s not as good at things like tears or anger—or the biting indignation edging his words. That’s all James—he probably couldn’t fake _not_ feeling it.

“Eating up the Prophet’s rubbish too?” Emmeline cuts her eyes at Lily, then back to James. “I’m sure it’s got _nothing_ to do with the fact that you’re practically in love with her.” 

James tugs at the back of his hair but he doesn’t deny it. Sirius, who’s been leaning in behind him, jumps to his feet.

“Oh please, don’t deflect onto him just because you can’t think of a good answer,” Lily says before he can get a word in. “Potter’s a meathead but at least _he_ can put two and two together when the facts are right in front of his face.”

Remus glances back at James. His smile is hesitant, like he’s not sure it’s allowed. That might be the nicest thing Lily’s ever said about him.

Emmeline stands and swings her bag over her shoulder, chin held high. “Fine. Wallow in your conspiracy theories.”

Lily groans, gripping her head like she’s at her wit’s end. “Em, it’s not a conspiracy theory if there’s evidence—"

“Whatever.” She jerks her head toward James as she sweeps away. “I hope you two will be very happy together.”

Their area of the table hangs in a silent purgatory, no one quite sure how to go back to their conversations. Lily peeks around at all the staring faces before settling on the scrubbed tabletop, her cheeks flaming beneath her freckles. Remus tries but can’t catch her eye.

He wishes he could believe Emmeline that this will all blow over, even though he knows Lily’s right. (McGonagall wouldn’t upend his entire future over a disorganized, vague threat.) But the urge to cling to any shred of hope that everything he’s worked for hasn’t vanished is so strong it’s like a rope tugging around his middle.

What would it be like to just ignore it? March up to McGonagall’s office and refuse their agreement and go on with his goals as planned no matter what she thinks might happen. God, he wants it so bad it hurts.

But it’s not true, and Lily’s right, and he should have said so. He should have stood up and got right in Emmeline’s face and told her as much. But so many people were watching and he’s a coward and a shit friend.

He’s standing up to tell her so when James beats him to it.

“Look, Lily, she was bang out of order—”

“Oh stuff it Potter,” she says as she snatches up her bag, but her usual venom’s not in it. More than anything she sounds tired. 

“Lily—hey Lils,” Remus calls after her, but she doesn’t turn around.

James watches her stalk away for a second before snapping back into himself. “Well gents, when’s the dorm meeting, then? We need a proper planning session if we’re going to finish this thing before Christmas.”

If James took his studies as seriously as he does all their projects, he could be Head Boy.

“What about tomorrow night?” Remus says as they stroll out into the corridor. "Most everyone will be out.” 

James makes a face, adjusting his glasses.

“So will we, Moons.” Sirius laughs. A lock of hair falls into his face and he tucks it behind his ear. “We are _not_ spending the first Saturday of our sixth year cooped up in the dorm with a chalkboard.”

Remus’s cheeks heat as he rolls his eyes. There’s a better-than-even chance he’ll spend most of Saturday night in the dorm regardless. Or maybe the library. “Fine. Sunday then?”

Peter shrugs. “Before dinner, though. I'll probably still have star charts to fill in that night.”

“Sunday it is,” James says.

With nods all around they split off toward their afternoon classes, Remus following James up the main staircase to Arithmancy. He takes three steps up before it knocks through him like a disarming spell.

Oh. Fuck. 

He’d had it all planned. Yesterday was all requisite courses like Potions and Charms, and this morning they all had DADA together. Nothing yet to raise suspicions about his bizarre new schedule. He was going to drop in his class changes casually at lunch, some nonsense about researching wizards leaning toward apprentices with field experience and McGonagall giving him special permissions—they’d buy that. James would’ve been bummed not having a partner in crime to face Professor Persima’s NEWT course, but it’s not like they ever dwell on class stuff too long. Everything would’ve been fine.

But with getting wrapped up in the map progress and then Emmeline and Lily fighting he completely forgot. Which means James will be sitting upstairs wondering where the hell he is, which he’ll definitely have to answer for in detail now. So in addition to missing out on one of his favorite courses he’s also well and properly fucked.

He turns on his heel and marches back through the entryway, catching the door from the person in front of him and slamming it open again with a huff. The day is warm and breezy in direct defiance of his mood as he stomps down the front steps of the castle toward the greenhouses. Herbology was a disaster when he last took it—he actually managed to kill one of Professor Sprout’s fanged geraniums second year, which are supposed to be damn near indestructible—and he dropped it the first chance he could. He doesn’t suspect his botanical skills have improved since then.

He’s striding around to the east grounds fantasizing about banging on Professor McGonagall’s door and refusing to leave until he has his old schedule back, fate of the free world be damned, when someone walks up behind him. He’s about to turn and tell them to bugger off when a familiar voice stops him cold.

“What’re you doing out here mate?” Sirius asks, smirking up at him like figuring Remus out is something he’ll never quite manage. “Don’t you and Prongs have one of your genius classes now?” 

Remus swallows hard. He’s been so worried about how to explain dropping Arithmancy to James that he forgot Sirius is the only one of them still in Herbology. He hasn’t even remotely planned for this lie. Holy fucking Christ on a cracker, he couldn’t muck this day up more if he tried.

***

“I still don’t get it,” Sirius says as they stow their bags on shelves under the paint-peeled potting tables in Greenhouse Four. The air inside is warm and thick with moisture, and he breathes deep the peaty floral taste. A hundred shades of green and wide, waxy leaves dangle from every shelf, vines with curling yellow flowers twining above their heads. This nursery houses some of his favorite plants and he loves it even though the humidity wreaks havoc on his hair. 

“There’s nothing to get,” Remus snaps, running a hand over his face. Sirius thinks he does it to hide when he’s blushing, but it only makes it worse.

“McGonagall says that field experience will look good to the labs I’ll apply to next year.” 

Sirius cocks his head. Remus wouldn’t lie to him, but he’s not making sense either. “Arithmancy looks good too, mate. And you haven’t taken Herbology since what, second year?” 

“So?”

“So, you don’t have the pre-requisites for NEWT Herbology. How’d Sprout let you register?”

If Remus was blushing before he’s flushed redder than the caps of the leaping toadstools now.

“Oh—I, um—she—”

The frantic way his eyes dart around as he stutters over his words tugs Sirius's chest. He leans an elbow on the high tabletop, waiting for Remus to clear his throat and try again (he usually gathers his thoughts a bit better on the second pass) when something slams onto his back, nearly sending him sprawling forward onto the packed dirt floor.

“Alright there, Black?” Marlene laughs, arms thrown around his neck as he stumbles to keep them both upright and resettle her legs around his waist.

“Think you can manage this year without getting mauled?” Marlene’s tall for a girl and quite curvy, but by now he’s used to her abuse and carries her just fine. 

“Hey, that Devil’s Snare had an attitude problem,” he says, bouncing her with his hips. 

“Ay, sure, blame the wee vine, minding its own when you—” She’s still laughing when she looks around.

“Oh, ay Remus,” she says, then blinks. “You’re not in Herbology, are you?”

Remus’s eyebrows crook in the middle, bottom lip snagged between his teeth. It’s torturous to watch; he looks like he wants to dissolve into the dirt floor. “I—uh—Professor McGonagall—"

Sirius slides Marlene down from his back, about to step in with a fantastical lie about a new link between some rare plant and particular areas of Charms research and how Pomfrey wants Remus getting more fresh air for his condition anyhow (he can’t remember what ailment he’s rumored to have now) when they’re saved by Professor Sprout ambling to the front of the greenhouse.

“Alright then lovelies, let’s get to it,” she says, and she begins labelling a drawing of a flower in cross section on the blackboard behind the demonstration table, blonde curls frizzing out from underneath her squashed hat. The tips of her fingers are stained black with dirt and her robes are rough and patched and littered with pockets, made for working. You couldn’t find a witch more different from Walburga Black if you tried. “You’re all familiar with the order of things by now and we’ve got a lot to get through today. Now, the dentine Asteraceae can be split into two main groups…”

Sirius glances over at Remus, who’s picking at a rough edge of paint on the table with his thumbnail and chewing his lip again as he takes notes. Usually it’s exams that get him like this, or a particularly illicit, not-at-all-becoming-of-a-prefect-we-could-all-be-expelled prank. But it’s the beginning of the year. They haven’t even had a chance to push his buttons yet. (Sirius loves the way Remus gets flustered when he and James goad each other into more and more outlandish gags, like the time they charmed Flitwick’s hair piece to leap down from his head and follow behind him like a puppy for a whole class.)

Maybe it’s the moon next Wednesday. (He’s followed the lunar calendar ever since they found Remus out second year.) He’s surly sometimes the week before, quicker to stalk off to the library when they get rowdy in the dorm or to snap at first years messing around in the corridors. But he hasn’t seemed this anxious over a moon in ages. Definitely not since they started going with him.

Marlene tweaks Sirius’s neck from his other side and he squirms, turning back to the front. She scribbles a note in the margin of her parchment and slides it toward him.

_What’s he doing here? Didn’t think you could switch into NEWT classes without OWLs._

_Dunno_ , he scribbles back below her bubbly script. _He didn’t tell me_. Writing it out stings. Since when do they keep secrets from each other? (And yes, his own record in that department isn’t exactly unblemished at the moment. But that’s barely relevant.)

Marlene frowns at Remus but doesn’t write anything else. Sirius tugs playfully at the corner of her parchment and she sighs, drumming her fingers on the table and sliding her notes the rest of the way over for him to check the labels he missed on the first diagram.

He’s finishing up as Professor Sprout pulls out a pot bursting with what look like sunny yellow daisies. When he looks closer, he thinks he can see a few twitching and snapping at each other. 

“These may seem tame compared to some of the things we covered before your OWLs, but don’t be careless. Carnivorous calendula can leave nasty bites if properly motivated, which they will be if you’re doing your jobs.”

She hefts several more large pots onto the table, grunting as each one settles with a clunk. “Use your shears so you don’t crush the blooms yanking on them. You’ll be harvesting the mature heads today, so be sure to take only the flowers with fully developed top _and_ bottom canines.”

When he sneaks another look, Remus has gone pale. His amber eyes are enormous, brows raised as he meets Sirius’s gaze before ducking back to his notes. Sirius tries to remember if he was any good at Herbology back when they all started—he probably was, he’s good at bloody everything in school—but then a memory of Professor Sprout scolding a weedy little Remus over the withered corpse of a fanged geranium pops into his head and startles a laugh out of him before he can stop it. 

Marlene raises her eyebrows and Remus flinches, of course assuming that Sirius is laughing at him. Which technically he _is_ , but at adorable, terrified-to-put-a-toe-out-of-line, never-failed-at-anything-in-class second year Remus. Not looks-like-he-might-throw-up, what-is-he-even-doing-here-when-he’d-clearly-rather-leap-from-the-astronomy-tower Remus.

“There’s enough calendula for everyone to work in pairs, except—” Professor Sprout does a last mental count around the greenhouse. “Mckinnon, Black, and—Lupin is it? Good to see you again love—you’ll work as a group of three.”

She wanders to their table as Marlene heads to the front to claim their calendula, stopping beside Remus. “You’ll need to do some remedial work to keep up with the class this term,” she says, dusting her hands on the front of her work apron. “But Flitwick and McGonagall tell me you’re among their brightest students. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t manage.” No hint at why he’s here, but she must know.

Remus doesn’t look her in the eye despite the warmth in her voice. “Of course, thank you Professor.”

“Black, you'll help Mr. Lupin get caught up? You still have your old notes I assume.”

Remus is already opening his mouth argue that it’s not necessary, which is bloody ridiculous because he could not be more in over his head unless he was fishing gillyweed from the lake.

“Of course. I’m happy lend them out.”

“Excellent. Good lad,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “Oh, and there’s some Vanishing Violets in Greenhouse Two that could use repotting if you’d like some extra credit at the weekend.”

“Sounds great, I’ll come by if I can. Thank you, Professor.” He waits until she’s wandered to check in with another group before turning to Remus, who’s staring at him like he's just spoken gobbledegook.

Sirius shakes his head. “What?”

“Do you really have your notes from last year?”

“Sure. I have all my old Herbology notes.”

Remus blinks at him. “What? Why?”

“They’re good notes. I want them for reference.”

When Remus keeps eyeing him like he’s sprouted wings he turns to look over his diagrams. “If you don’t think you need them don’t take them.”

He’s not as good at school as Remus or even James—he doesn’t have a head for theoretical magic like they do. In Herbology though, or Care of Magical Creatures—courses where he can be outside, work with his hands, feeding and touching the magic of real things that hold his interest—he’s one of the best in their year. Just because he doesn’t go around advertising it—

“No, I do—sorry,” Remus says. “It’s just—unexpected.”

Sirius combs his hair back from his face. Sweat’s dampening his hairline from the pressing humidity and sticking wisps to his forehead.

“You’ll be saving my life, really.” Remus says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know if you remember but I’m rubbish at this.”

Sirius almost snaps _Then why are you taking this class out of the blue and lying about it?_ but Remus is standing there with his flushed cheeks and elbows on the table, picking at his nails and he’s so obviously a wreck over _something_ that Sirius can’t help but drop it.

“Oh, I remember,” he grins instead. “The plants in Greenhouse One probably trembled when you walked by.”

Remus rolls his eyes but his mouth curves up and for the first time all afternoon he seems to relax.

At least until Marlene plunks their calendula pot on the table between them and he stumbles backward like it might climb out and attack him. Which of course makes Sirius snort with laughter.

“Settle down Jumpy Jackalope,” she says, yanking on her dragon hide gloves before turning to Remus with her hands on her ample hips. “I don’t know how you switched straight into NEWT Herbology, but you clearly have no idea what’s going on.”

Remus’s whole face is red, but he nods. “Fair enough.”

“Lucky for you Siri and I are just about the best in this class—what?” she says when Sirius groans.

He looks up at the vines tangling the ceiling and twists his frizzing hair up off his neck. “Nothing, nothing. You’re just making us sound like a couple of complete botany nerds, but please do go on.”

“We _are_ a couple of complete botany nerds.”

Remus covers his snicker with his hand. Sirius tries to look annoyed as he watches his eyes crinkle with a strange flutter in his stomach.

As soon as Remus calls attention to himself, though, Marlene whips back to him.

“Which is why you’ll get through this without an armful of swollen calendula bites if—” she slaps a spare pair of gloves to his chest that he juggles before taking—“You do exactly as we say, when we say it.” Then she turns away from them both and picks up a pair of shears. “Cheers.”

Remus looks at him, eyes wide and full of stunned laughter, and Sirius can only shrug. Marlene is, well, Marlene. She’s a lot, sometimes, but so is Sirius. And unlike him, if she wants something, she makes it happen. She doesn’t take any crap from anyone.

He’s twisting his hair up properly to tuck his wand through when she tuts at him.

“Ay, here,” she says, sliding a round black elastic from her wrist with a roll of her eyes. “Honestly. You’ll blow your head off.”


	4. Hello, It's Me

“You don’t think there’ll be any long-term effects from this, do you?” Remus says, cross-legged on his bed with the sleeve of his jumper rolled up, squinting at his forearm. After a day of festering his calendula bite is angry and swollen and oozing orange goo. It’d be his luck, really, if he died from coursework meant to better prepare him for a future fighting Death Eaters.

“How should I know?” Sirius rolls over to look at Remus from his covers. He’s still not out of bed even though he’s been up for almost an hour. 

“Well apparently you’re a magical plant prodigy, so…” Remus smears on more of the bitter yellow salve Madame Pomfrey gave him (the active ingredient of which is, hilariously, calendula petals).

Sirius groans and drops his head into his forearms. “I’m never going to hear the end of this am I?”

“You being Sprout’s secret class pet? Not a chance.” Peter says without looking up from where he’s sprawled across his own bed flipping through James’s copy of _Quidditch Monthly_.

“I don’t see why you’d hide it in the first place.” Remus says.

“Yes, I know you don’t.” Sirius flops onto his back again so that he’s looking at Remus upside down, his hair dangling over the edge of the bed. Watching him in the greenhouse, for once unironically interested in something, concentrating and deliberate—it’s a side of him Remus can’t remember seeing before. That he’ll get to see it again is the only thing he’s looking forward to about Herbology. 

He lays a fresh piece of gauze across the wound, pressing it down with a wince. “Seriously, how long do you think this is going last?”

“I don’t know, a week? _I’ve_ never been bitten by carnivorous calendula because _I_ know how to keep my arms tucked when someone tells me to _for the third time._ ”

Remus rolls his eyes, a piece of medical tape pinched between his teeth. He decided a long time ago that the universe is eternally unfair. Like how Sirius can be this class clown rebel who studies half as much as he does and yet secretly ace Herbology. Or how he’s the only person Remus has ever met who looks _better_ when he’s first woken up, hair all tousled and falling around his face. 

Sirius grins, still upside down. “Honestly I can’t believe you only got bitten once. I thought Marlene was going to attack you herself after you nearly dumped the whole pot on the floor.”

“I don’t know what in our interactions has ever led you to expect grace and physical dexterity from this body, but you can assume more of the same on Monday.” Remus tugs his sleeve down over the fresh bandage, balling his hands inside the cuffs. (He buys all his jumpers a size too big so that the sleeves fall to his fingertips. That the extra bulk hides his lanky frame is just a bonus.)

“Please, you’re the smoothest werewolf I know,” Sirius teases, but his voice is gentler than usual.

Remus grabs _Season of the Witch_ off his nightstand to avoid responding. He doesn’t want to come off bitter, especially since Sirius seems to be taking it upon himself to make sure he doesn’t flunk out of Herbology. It’s just that James has quidditch. Peter has chess. Sirius is, well, Sirius (confident, annoyingly funny, popular with damn near everyone…take your pick). And Remus is smart.

Well, they’re all brilliant, in their ways, but he’s the one who’s applied it to things that matter, like school. That’s what he brings to the group. It’s annoyed him before, when they’ve asked to copy an essay introduction or look over his History of Magic research, but now, without that frivolous little edge of being better in class, he’s foundering in open water, completely unmoored. Completely pathetic.

A pillow lands across his book and he jumps, losing his page. It smells like eucalyptus and cedar—that ridiculous expensive shampoo Sirius uses. When he looks up Sirius is right-side-up again. He cocks his head, eyebrows raised in a question. Remus can’t tell what it is.

Before he can ask it out loud a pillow sails from James’s bed and whacks him across the head.

“Oy. Breakfast,” James says in explanation. “You. Dressed. Five minutes or we’re leaving without you.”  
“Yes mother.” Sirius extracts himself from his blankets (finally) and tosses James’s pillow back at him, which he catches with a grin.

“Please, if I was your mother you’d’ve been up, fed, and weeding the cavorting carrots hours ago.”

“And much less emotionally damaged, I’m sure.”

Sirius stretches in the morning the same way he does everything else: extravagantly. Arms above his head, groaning and flexing and his t-shirt riding up. (God, can’t he just roll his neck and move on like a normal fucking person?)

At that exact moment Sirius freezes and tugs down the hem of his shirt in this jerky, self-conscious way that’s so _not_ Sirius, Remus panics for a second that he’s said the thought out loud. 

He recovers so quick Remus thinks maybe he imagined it, though, his haughty brashness back in place when he emerges from his armoire with fresh clothes over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom.

Christ. If he’s showering, they’ll be here all morning.

Remus chews at his thumbnail, forcing himself back to his book. Sirius has always been a bit _much_. He’s not sure why it’s bothering him today. It’s not like the lounging and taking bloody forever and absurd not-questions haven’t been there for five years.

It’s a few minutes before he notices the shower’s not running.

Unlike Remus, Sirius has never had any qualms about changing in their room. On weeknights he traditionally rips off his robes and uniform like he’s allergic the second he gets back to the dorm. Whether he’s alone or not or has mortified roommates trying to look anywhere else has never made much difference.

The water still hasn’t run two minutes later when he emerges in black jeans and a Rolling Stones t-shirt, buckling one of his studded leather cuffs around his wrist.

“Combed, pressed, and awaiting your approval mummy dearest,” he says to James, who pockets the snitch he’s been playing with and swings up from his bed.

“Dashing as always, muffin. Now let’s _go_ , I feel like I’m going to pass out if I don’t get some sausage.”

“Oh, we all know how much you love the sausage, _Prongs_.”

Remus tents his book down on his bed and resolves to stop being stupid as Sirius, James, and Peter whoop their way out the door ahead of him. He’s probably just irritable with the moon a few days out and looking for scabs to pick. And anyway, he’d have to have started _noticing_ Sirius changing in front of them at some point to notice him _not_ doing it now, which he absolutely has not.

***

“All I’m saying is nobody’d be that surprised if they bothered to ask me,” James says, trotting down the grand staircase to the main corridor.

“You’ll notice no one did ask you, so shut it.”

“There’s what, six or seven pots lined along your windowsill at home?”

Merlin, how are they back on this again?

He didn’t start it. (People just assumed, as they do about bloody everything.) But he didn’t correct them, either, and settled quite nicely into his above-such-petty-concerns-as-grades reputation. (It infuriates his parents, which is reason enough.) Marlene gets it, or at least knows how to keep her mouth shut most of the time. Unlike some people.

James grins at him. “As I recall you left Mum with quite a strict watering schedule.”

“No way,” Peter laughs. “Who are you and what have you done with Sirius Black?”

He’s going to smother James in his sleep. 

“What sorts of plants?” Remus asks. Because he can find a way to be curious about anything. Even Sirius’s Levitating Pitcher Plants, apparently. 

One of them joining his elective classes should be mortifying (and it is, a little), but he can’t deny that a small part of him likes Remus seeing that he’s good at something besides slipping their annual niffler into the new DADA professor’s office.

Which is why he’s a right prat for saying, “The sort that aren’t this big of a deal. Merlin, let it go.”

Breakfast is almost over, so there’s more people filing out of the Great Hall than going in. He can’t stop glancing at Remus scowling with his hands in his pockets. (Not that you’d be able to see his hands anyway, with his gigantic dorky jumpers. Today’s is this textured olive-y brown—it’s like he doesn’t care at all if he looks cool, which he definitely does not.)

Sirius doesn’t see the person coming out the door until they collide—nose, chin, and sturdy chest.

He stumbles backward and pinches the bridge of his throbbing nose, his eyes watering. “Merlin’s mangy mustache—”

“Cripes, sorry mate. Didn’t see—oh. Hi Sirius.”

Sirius whips his head up. The pulsing pain in his face fades, replaced by a squeamish, frantic heat. Oh bugger.

“Alright Arjun?” James says, clapping the boy’s palm and pulling him into one of those shoulder-slapping quidditch guy hugs.

“Yeah, just blind, apparently. Maybe you’ll actually stand a chance against us now.”

James laughs and knocks him on the shoulder. “McCrae scooped the snitch from under your nose last year. I like her odds of a repeat performance.”

Arjun’s on the Hufflepuff team. He’s a bit shorter than James—closer to Sirius’s height—but still lithe and fit. The perfect build for a Seeker, James has said before, going over the house teams’ rosters.

“You okay Black?” Arjun’s casual as can be, extending a hand for him to clap. Sirius takes it, clenching his teeth to keep from frowning at the nickname. Arjun’s just keeping up their agreement, he knows that, but Sirius doesn’t like touching him this way—rough and removed, like those same hands haven’t pinned his torso into dark corners all over the castle.

Sirius tucks his hair behind his ear. “Yeah, sorry. Wasn’t paying attention.”

They didn’t write over the summer. (Arjun didn’t ask, and there’s no way Sirius would offer and risk Walburga intercepting letters from his secret queer whatever-Arjun-is.) But seeing him here, now, with his long black eyelashes and broad shoulders and smooth brown skin, Sirius realizes that with everything that’s happened he hasn’t thought of him at all the past two months.

Arjun bumps a fist on his arm. “All good, mate. I’ll see you later then, yeah?”

And it’s like they both realize what he’s said at the same time, Arjun’s eyes widening before he jerks back to James. “You’re holding tryouts next week too, yeah? Think you’ll be able to find a decent beater to replace Nahome?”

And then they’re chirping each other about the first match of the season again and Sirius wants to kick James in the shin so he’ll bloody _get on with it_ and let Arjun leave.

“Who was that?” Remus asks as they’re sliding onto the mostly-empty benches at the Gryffindor table. He’s looking at Sirius, not James. Sirius starts loading his plate with what’s left of the eggs so he can pretend not to notice.

“Arjun Nagraj,” James says through a bite of sausage. “The Hufflepuff seeker. He’s in our year, you know him.”

Remus blinks at James, face deadpan, and agitated as Sirius is he has to press the back of his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. 

“He was in Transfiguration with us fourth year, I think.” Peter offers.

“Party in the common room tonight, right?” Sirius says over him. Maybe he’s being too obvious, but the sooner they’re off Arjun, the better.

James nods. “Rosmerta swiped some stuff from her mum's storeroom before term. She says she's got plenty. I might head to the pitch this afternoon though, see if anyone fancies a pickup game. You guys want to join?”

Peter’s almost leaping out of his seat to agree on a time and Sirius shrugs, happy to let him take over the conversation again. He wouldn’t mind a quick match. (Flying’s great to blow off steam, not to mention the therapeutic effects knocking a bludger around for an hour.) But there’s a good chance Arjun will be hanging around the pitch and he’d rather not get into round two of melting together all the parts of his life he works so hard to keep separated.

Will they pick up where they left off? He did say “see you later.” But they didn’t talk about what would happen this year the last time they saw each other. (Or talk at all, really.)

Their relationship isn’t a _relationship_ in the technical ‘sharing feelings, holding hands, devoted to one another’ sense. They fall more in the territory of ‘we’re both poofs who have no intention of sharing that fact with the wider world, but since we’re fit blokes why not grope each other in empty classrooms in the meantime?’

Ever since he first noticed his eyes lingering on boys’ jawlines in class when all his friends were noticing girls (capped off by one horrifying month third year when he caught himself noticing _James_ before his body came to its senses), Sirius has flirted with damn near everyone. He figured he’d accidentally ogle a boy he liked at some point (his self-control’s not exactly iron-clad), so better to build a reputation as that outrageous jokester winking at people in the corridors and making kissy faces across the lawn so no one would catch his slip ups. (He tries not to flirt with girls he doesn’t know if he’s paying attention, sticking to people like Marlene and Dorcas who definitely aren’t interested and have thick enough skin to dish it right back. But that hasn’t kept him from gaining renown as a ladies’ man, which, although convenient in terms of protecting his secret, is just another exhausting ruse to keep up.) 

And it worked just fine until spring term last year. He was hanging out with Peter, waiting for James outside changing rooms by the pitch after they beat Hufflepuff in a nail-biter of a match, when Arjun ambled out from the Hufflepuff locker room, thick black hair still wet from his shower. Sirius had ribbed him about his narrow miss on the snitch. (He should have known better, in retrospect, having spent enough time nursing James’s pride after a loss.) Before he could turn to snicker with Peter Arjun got right in his face.

All clenched jaw and squared shoulders he snapped that he’d like to see Sirius do better, and unless he’d be out on the pitch himself for the next match he could go get bent. And of course, Sirius being Sirius, got in his face right back and winked.

“You name the time and the place, love.”

Something in Arjun’s eyes faltered. Sirius swore he saw them flick down to his lips and back up. He swallowed, his neck prickling with heat, the joke not feeling enough like a joke anymore. The moment passed as quickly as it came, though, and Arjun’s eyes hardened again. Sirius thought he might swing at him before he called him a fucking fag and stormed up to the castle.

With the celebration in the common room that night and OWL cramming with the boys the rest of the weekend Sirius forgot all about Arjun and their odd exchange until the following week when, walking back up to the castle from the greenhouses, someone wheeled around the corner and near-tackled him behind a bush.

Before he could sputter out a protest bruising lips worked there way up his neck and strong hands gripped his hips and he tipped his head back without thinking because Merlin, how could he not?

Arjun pulled back, just enough to look Sirius in the eye and growl, “Right now work for you?”

His dark eyes were electric, lips parted and full and his jaw so cut it was like he was chiseled out of stone. It’d been months since Sirius touched someone, kissed someone, and never here, at school, where anyone could catch him. The thrill of it shivered through him like a curse. There was nothing to do, really, but grab Arjun by the back of his neck and snog him senseless.

“What?” He realizes too late that Peter is talking to him.

Peter scoops a bite of eggs. “I _said_ , you in at beater?” 

“Oh, I don’t—” He stops short when a sleek, tawny barn owl flutters down onto the table in front of Remus, toppling a leaning tower of toast into a tray of fruit.

Peter sets about gathering up the spilled toast while Remus unties the rolled message from its leg and feeds the owl a nibble of his bacon, frowning. His mum tends to hover, but she’s usually good for a week at least before the letters start coming. Sirius waits while he reads it, expecting him to regale them with whatever silly obvious reminder his mum’s written him about the upcoming moon, but Remus just chews at his bottom lip for a second and pockets the note.

“Hope and Lyall send their love?” Sirius prods.

Remus blinks at him, his cheeks flushing. “Oh—uh, yeah. You know how my mum gets.”

“So Moony, are you planning to grace us with your presence this evening?” James teases.

Remus doesn’t party, ever. (Nursing the same whiskey in the corner all night with a book doesn’t count, as Sirius has informed him on more than one occasion.)

He rolls his eyes at his bacon. “Much as I’d hate to miss your drunken proclamations to the common room and the girls swarming Sirius, I think I’ll pass.”

“Hey, how else would anyone know that Gryffindor quidditch is the most dominate force in Hogwarts history?” James points at him with his speared sausage. “I’m bringing important information to the masses.”

“And if you’d join us now and again some of those girls would be falling all over _you_.” Sirius’s stomach hollows even as he takes another bite of eggs. He’s used to dropping little comments like this, but for some reason it’s harder to keep the grin screwed on his face today. 

Remus fixes him with one of his patented _please,_ _you must be joking_ stares, and though Sirius smirks what he really wants to do is reach across and cuff Remus in the side of the head.

His lack of confidence has irked Sirius to no end for years. True, he’s never had a girlfriend, and if he’s done any snogging on the side, he hasn’t shared it with them. (Not that Sirius would expect him to—he’s not really the kiss-and-tell type.) But there’s no good reason for it except that he’s convinced himself he’s unlikable, which is bollocks. He’s not as fit as Arjun or James, but he’s got the tall, mysterious intellectual thing going. And yes, he can be mortifyingly awkward, but most of the time it’s endearing. If he’d get out of his own way and try to be a person every once in a while, he’d definitely be able to pull one of the smart girls Lily hangs around with.

“Well since you’ll clearly be getting your library time in today, what’s say we head over to the greenhouses tomorrow?”

Peter bursts out laughing, and Sirius tosses a piece of toast at his head. 

“ _Anyway_ , I was thinking of tackling that extra credit for Sprout. Come by and we’ll go over some basics with the vining species. If you’re not too traumatized by your injury, that is.”

He expects Remus to quip back at him, and his smile slips when Remus looks down at his plate.

“Oh. Yeah, maybe.”

“You’ve got to get caught up soon, Moons, or you’ll be lost by the first exam.”

“Yes I know, thanks,” Remus snaps.

The table’s dead quiet and he sets down his fork with a clatter, his whole face blazing red up to his ears.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’ve got some stuff to do. But I’ll try, ok?”

Sirius scrunches his nose. “What ‘stuff?’ It’s the first week of term—” But Remus is already swinging his legs over the bench.

“I’m going to try to knock out Flitwick’s essay,” he says without looking at them. “Should have gotten an earlier start anyway. I’ll catch up with you later.” And then he’s striding across the nearly-empty Great Hall and gone, hands bunched in the sleeves of his jumper.

“What was that about?” Peter asks, eyebrows raised.

“Moon’s in four days,” James shrugs. “He’s probably just nervous. First moon back’s always a little weird, isn’t it? And I can’t remember him ever Changing this soon into term.”

Sirius nods, pushing his hair back off his face. James is right. The week before a moon’s always a bit touchy. So why can't he shake the gnawing in his gut that there’s something else, something Remus isn’t telling them?

“Well boys,” James says, swiping a napkin across his mouth. “We’ve got a few hours to kill. What’s say we pay Filch’s office a visit? He confiscated some dung bombs and everlasting fireworks from me at the end of last term that I’d quite like back.”

Sirius grins. He can always count on James for some mischief to distract him from his roiling brain. “Only if we swing by the greenhouses first.”

James and Peter both look at him like he’s just sprouted horns, and he laughs. “There’s a pile of thestral manure out back, you numpties. It’s only polite to leave Filch a welcome back gift, don’t you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that it took so long to post an update. Real life stuff and all that in the age of COVID, so thanks for understanding. All always leave love or just say hi in the comments! Hope you're all staying safe and well!


End file.
